These Roles Are Unlikely to Report to CMOs Despite Marketing Departments Taking Control of Key Aspects of CX Execution Within Their Organizations
Organizations are taking customer experience (CX) more seriously by committing more resources and talent to the discipline, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner’s 2019 Customer Experience Management Survey revealed that in 2017, more than 35% of organizations lacked a chief experience officer (CXO) or chief customer officer (CCO) or equivalents, but in 2019, only 11% and 10% lacked one or the other role, respectively (see Figure 1).
“There has been significant growth in the presence of CXOs and CCOs or equivalents in many organizations over the last two years,” said Augie Ray, VP analyst, Gartner for Marketers. “However, these roles rarely report to CMOs despite marketing taking control of more CX initiatives.”
The survey — which covered a variety of departments where CX efforts are run and supported, such as marketing, IT, customer service, operations, sales and stand-alone CX departments — found that responsibility for CX budgets and initiatives has begun to shift into the marketing department.
“As marketing continues to take on a larger role in CX, marketing leadership faces a potential challenge coordinating companywide CX,” said Ray. “CMOs and marketing leaders responsible for aspects of their organization’s CX must ensure that roles are understood, redundancy and conflict are minimized, and collaboration is prioritized.”
To do this, Gartner recommends that CMOs and marketing leaders take the following actions:
Establish clear lines of responsibility and authority for everyone involved in CX: The presence of many departments and leaders contributing to CX demands strong cross-functional governance. To avoid different leaders managing conflicting CX strategies and programs, ensure all CX leaders meet regularly, share information, discuss common problems, evaluate duplicative vendors and efforts, and avoid confusion over accountability.
Broaden marketing measures: For marketing to successfully take and sustain a larger role in enterprisewide CX, marketers must consider the comparative weight given to their short- and long-term metrics. Committing time and resources to CX efforts should go beyond short-term goals such as awareness, inbound traffic and conversion, but also long-term outcomes such as improved customer satisfaction, reduced churn, increased lifetime value and great referral volume. Define goals not just by internal expectations, but by how customers define success. Establish metrics and KPIs around efforts that meet customer expectations.